<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
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 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
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 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'My apartment is now officially reserved for me.',
	'body' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/01/12.jpg" alt="A horse poking its head over a fence" class="weblog-header-image" width="809" height="480" />
<h2 id="to-do">To-do list</h2>
<ul>
<li><del>Pay a visit to Emerald Property Management (tomorrow) to finalize paperwork</del></li>
<li>Fetch change of address forms from the post office</li>
<li>Pack all my unboxed belongings (mostly clothing) in bins</li>
<li>Buy a small set of dishes and eating utensils (after I&apos;ve moved)</li>
<li>Buy an inexpensive, second-hand bicycle and helmet (after I&apos;ve moved)</li>
<li>Finish stabilizing <a href="https://git.volatile.ch./y.st./include.d/releases">include.d</a> and put out another release (low priority)</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="general">General news</h2>
<p>
	In my excitement, I forgot to change pants before I went in to work today.
	I apologized for wearing the wrong pants, and the head manager said not to do it again.
	They said that if I did, they wouldn&apos;t forgive me.
	their words made it seem like they were joking, but their tone of voice seemed serious.
	I&apos;m a bit confused.
</p>
<p>
	I ended up getting to clock in almost half an hour early, and also ended up taking on a closing shift before I even started.
	As a result, I probably ended up trading a boring work night of flattening pizza dough and fitting it into pans for a much better night of running the drive-through.
	While I was on the drive-through, I even learned a new trick to use with the Crown of Voices that even the head manager didn&apos;t seem to know.
	I love experimenting with things.
</p>
<p>
	My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
</p>
<h2 id="dreams">Dream journal</h2>
<p>
	I dreamed that late registrations at University of the People had started.
	The university had unregistered me from <span title="Ethics and Social Responsibility">PHIL 1404</span>, likely due to not enough people registering for it, resulting in an incomplete class.
	I&apos;d need to choose a different second course for next term.
	As the dream continued though, it wasn&apos;t my list of courses that I was looking at.
	Instead, it was my list of domain names.
	My registrar had stopped offering domains under certain $a[TLD]s, and instead of letting me know and giving me time to move those domains to another registrar, those domains had simply been dropped from my account.
	One of about three domains that I&apos;d lost was <code>//y.st.</code>! Not only had they cost me my main domain, they&apos;d lost me all the money that I&apos;d put into the initial purchase.
	While the renewal rate isn&apos;t that high, the initial registration cost for my short domain was certainly not cheap.
	The horror of having lost my main domain and all that money woke me up.
</p>
<p>
	Thankfully, <code>//y.st.</code>, my only domain at the moment, is registered directly with the registry, something that&apos;s only allowed with certain $a[ccTLD]s.
	There is no separate registrar, and the registry isn&apos;t going to suddenly stop offering domains under the $a[TLD] that they manage.
	Tomorrow, late registrations begin, and I can probably find out if my courses were approved then.
</p>
<h2 id="university">University life</h2>
<p>
	The university is opening up a student ambassador program in which students share their stories to help promote the school.
	I tried to join the program, but the first barrier was a CloudFlare $a[CAPTCHA] wall.
	Ugh.
	Oh well, I filled out the stupid $a[CAPTCHA] for those $a[Tor]-haters, CloudFlare.
	The actual form to fill out though demands both a home telephone number and a cellular telephone number.
	Both are labeled as required fields.
	That&apos;s where I draw the line.
	I&apos;ll probably try leaving those fields blank anyway, and if that doesn&apos;t work, I&apos;ll try entering a string explaining that I&apos;m unreachable by telephone.
	If that doesn&apos;t work, I&apos;ll complain to the university about the issue.
	I can&apos;t test the form now though, as I need more time to form my responses to some of the questions that it poses.
</p>
<h2 id="apartment">Apartment hunting</h2>
<p>
	Yesterday after it rained, the sky cleared up.
	However, it was overcast again today and threatened to rain.
	This time, I had a zippable plastic bag to protect my cheque, but I didn&apos;t want to show up wet myself.
	Luckily, it didn&apos;t rain though.
	Additionally, the walk was much more pleasant this time, now that I actually knew where I was going.
	I took a different route than last time, and this time, I saw a pair of horses in a stable by the road.
	I figured that it was a great photographing opportunity, so I walked over, but hopefully not close enough to spook the horses.
	I didn&apos;t intend to get any closer, but one of the horses poked its head over the fence to greet me and acted like it wanted me to come over.
	It seemed like it might be rude to ignore the horse, so I came over, showed it my hand, and when it didn&apos;t withdraw, I gently rubbed its nose.
	The other horse didn&apos;t seem to want anything to do with me though, and stayed a good distance away from the fence.
</p>
<p>
	I&apos;ve now signed the paperwork to put the apartment on hold and asked about the security deposit.
	The cleaner that I leave the apartment, the more money I get back, but it&apos;s impossible to get it all back.
	Some Oregon law states that the property managers <strong>*must*</strong> perform certain cleanup tasks between renters, regardless of how clean the place is when the last renter moves out, and the cost of that will come out of my security deposit.
	I don&apos;t really mind, but it&apos;s certainly good to have that information.
	I was also going to ask about the lease length, but before I could, I noticed the checked box on the form that I was to sign as I went over it.
	It&apos;s a month-to-month agreement! This has the disadvantage that if my mother wants us to leave town on a moment&apos;s notice, I can&apos;t use the rental agreement as an excuse to stay a while longer, but that&apos;s vastly outweighed by the freedom it gives me.
	I can walk out at any time.
	I don&apos;t <strong>*want*</strong> to walk out, but I also don&apos;t want to be tied down by anything other than my desire to stay.
	They said that the apartment should be ready for me to move in by the twentieth of the month.
</p>
<p>
	I found some cute squirrels on the way home, but they were much less willing to pose for photographs than the horse was.
</p>
<p>
	I told my boss about the apartment, as they requested that I keep them informed.
	This will probably be my last update to them until I provide a change of address.
</p>
END
);
